


a bird without its wings

by sweetlyinfinite



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cool!, Fluff, M/M, Pining, also in case you wonder ive written it the way it is purposely, harry/zayn appear but not sexually, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetlyinfinite/pseuds/sweetlyinfinite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>with every passing day zayn falls in love with liam the smallest amount more, just like the very first day, and he realises now what that feeling is. it does indeed deem the term falling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a bird without its wings

zayn and liam meet when they're fourteen and lost (not actually _lost_ , but they have no idea where their lives are going). liam plays football and zayn doesn’t.

zayn has a reason not to do pe, something he begged and begged and begged his mother to tell the school so he doesn’t have to do anything that involves him potentially being the centre of attention. he's self-conscious about everything and to do physical activity in _front_ of people causes him to have an anxiety attack. the teachers don’t make him do anything. he just has to sit and observe and occasionally set out cones and help referee.

the day they meet he’s marking the role for a teacher while he goes to get a football per demand of his class.

he sees a name he hasn’t before in the p’s and blinks up owlishly to look at the boy who answers to liam payne. the boy’s smiling and he’s lanky and sort of pale and zayn’s heart beats faster and he isn't exactly sure if he’s going to have an attack or if he’s just slightly nervous at the sight of someone he hasn’t grown up with. (really, he’s just falling a little bit in love.)

“yeah,” liam says, smiling and zayn wants to draw him.

zayn flutters his eyelids quickly and okay, yeah, he’s nervous now. he nods, takes a breath that burns his lungs and ticks off the name. he keeps marking and his voice is quivering and when he’s finished he looks back up for just a moment his eyes are already on liam and liam’s are already on him and liam is still smiling but it’s softer and zayn feels trapped.

so he nods again, jerkily this time, with a blush on his cheeks and scampers over to the cold bleachers. he grabs his sketch book from his bag and uses a simple 2B led pencil to capture the brightness in liam’s eyes and his smile and his _soul_ as he fights for the ball with a blue-eyed boy named louis in the sun. when zayn’s done he stares at it for a moment before ripping it out and into small squares that litter the ground like snow.

he spends the rest of the period scratching words from richard siken’s ‘You Are Jeff’ into the bleachers. (zayn’s never liked shakespeare.)

 

 

liam approaches him a week later and asks if he wants to be friends. zayn sort of freaks out because he doesn’t have friends and this is a person he doesn’t know and when he looks up liam’s eyes are the warmest he’s ever seen and that soothes his heart and scattered mind and he’s able to reply with another nod, however shaky it is.

liam sits down with him and they eat lunch and then liam talks and that goes on for a while, liam talking and talking and talking and zayn nodding or shaking his head, until zayn blurts out something about nothing and it’s gradual after that. by the time they're sixteen zayn doesn’t freeze up like he used to, though he does constantly question whether or not he’s being annoying.

when they get joined by three other lads (liam took to them like he did with zayn) zayn tries his hardest to contribute to the conversations to please liam and liam kisses his forehead and zayn flushes and stops asking if he’s annoying. he finds a way with liam guiding him away from being as self-conscious as he used to be but he still doesn’t do pe.

with every passing day zayn falls in love with liam the smallest amount more, just like the very first day, and he realises now what that feeling is. it does indeed deem the term _falling_.

 

 

when everyone sees zayn jogging in the park early saturday morning they don’t know exactly what to do.

they’re eighteen now, and zayn hasn’t ever (ever) participated in any kind of sport or fitness activity. at all. not even when a football landed in front of him, right in front of his foot, and louis had asked if he could please kick it back onto the field please. zayn’d looked at it and raised his eyebrows as he lifted his head up to instead look at louis. (niall ended up getting it.)

the thing with zayn jogging is not just the shock of him exerting energy on ‘pointless shit’, but the way he looks so _hot_. louis, who’s gay, drops his mouth open and has to tell himself pouncing on his friend and ravishing him wouldn’t be very friendly; harry, who’s pan, blinks his eyes wider than the sun and bites his lip; niall, who doesn’t swing any particular way, chokes and drops his drink; liam, who thought he was 93% straight, muffles a groan with his arm and can't speak properly for a while.

granted, none of them can speak properly for a while, but liam can't speak until a little after the others and when he does all that comes out is a strangled, “fuck.”

zayn’s hair is wet, he’s got a _very fucking tight_ tank top barely covering his surprisingly toned chest and showing off his _arms_ , grey sweats and sneakers on, and he’s glowing and shining sweaty in the sunlight. his cheeks are flushed and his eyes are bright and he has a slight shadow on his jaw where he hasn’t shaved and nobody knows what to do but stare.

zayn sees them eventually, because they are a group of teenagers gawking at him in a park, and he doesn’t freeze like he thought he would. he grins and his lips are too red for his face. he jogs past them and as he does he says, “pick up your jaws, lads,” and that’s what snaps them out of it, whatever it is.

zayn jogs frequently, as it turns out, and works out in the home gym his mum helped him set up, and he hid it behind overly loose shirts and pants. he starts wearing tight clothes and everyone ( _everyone_ ; every boy, girl, teacher, parent they know) ogles at him at least once because where did he even come from?

zayn also wears leather and dog tags sometimes, and his friends don’t know what caused this change but louis thinks it may be for someone zayn fancies. when he proposes the idea to the boys liam doesn’t feel too well. he also thinks he might know why his heart clenches and spasms at the thought of _zayn_.

(it has to do with zayn’s cheekbones and wanting not only zayn’s mouth, but also his heart.)

 

 

they're still eighteen when zayn watches his boys play football for the school, harry seated next to him and cheering for them all but mainly louis (harry himself wasn’t good enough to get on the team, but he makes up for it with his loud cheers). zayn doesn’t really want to but he watches as liam slaps his teammate’s backs and nudges the opposing team’s shoulders or slides a leg between two of theirs to kick the ball away and he tries not to get too mad.

liam’s all he needs whenever he doesn’t need anything else and liam’s always there but not zayn’s to keep and that’s what makes zayn mad.

it tugs at zayn’s mind every time he misses an opportunity to tell liam he’s _beautiful_ and that he _loves_ him. every chance he lets pass by where he could be kissing liam burns a hole in his heart the size of the cigarette between his lips instead, and it positively _breaks_ zayn when he sees a shirt he must’ve left at liam’s straining across the golden expanse of _skin_ and muscle of liam and the smile liam wears because of it.

really though, zayn just wants liam to be his, and he doesn’t know that liam’s already his as much as he can be. liam's still young at heart and zayn’s a bit of an old soul and zayn thinks he might just jump off a bridge if liam beams at him again and this is where harry reminds zayn of his presence.

“s’hard, isn't it?” he says, eyes quiet and understanding.

zayn nods because he’s seen the way he looks at louis (like he’s the goddam motherfucking sun) and he’s pretty sure that’s how he looks at liam (but liam might just be the moon and all the stars surrounding).

“yeah,” he says back, just in case harry wasn’t looking.

“do you think if we snuck off to have a smoke they’d notice?”

“nah,” zayn replies, getting up off the bleachers and following harry to outside the locker rooms. zayn gives harry a cigarette and harry just looks more at ease. zayn lights both their sticks of death with a blue lighter and they don’t say anything and harry doesn’t cough or splutter and zayn doesn’t question it.

the red ends burn together, and when they’re done harry smiles and he looks so incredibly sad and zayn knows he looks like that too as he smiles back. zayn reaches for harry’s hand and he interlaces their fingers and harry’s smile is less sad and their fingers look so different laced together, like caramel against cream.

zayn doesn’t let go once that night, not even when he has to go home because harry asks niall to drive them to his house and they cuddle in harry’s bedroom where the air is tainted heavily with the smell of louis and upset. zayn merely squeezes tighter and they whisper what makes their hearts break, and he only lets go in the morning when he has to piss.

rather, when he gets back from the bathroom they kiss, wonderful and soft and it’s sweet and represents the other’s willing presence. they keep kissing for the rest of the morning, always easy, lazy presses of lips, and when they decide to stop, harry says z _ayn_ and zayn says _yeah?_ and harry says _he loves you_ and zayn smiles weakly and says _he doesn’t_ and harry doesn’t reply.

 

louis blinks at them on monday and says, “are you two a thing, or whatever.”

zayn and harry laugh and laugh and laugh for maybe an eternity before zayn shakes his head and harry slings an arm around zayn’s neck and they both have tears in their eyes.

“no,” harry says and zayn breathes to not laugh because it’s heavily ironic.

louis nods and that’s that, though liam feels lighter and louis looks brighter.

liam says, “good,” but he says it like he doesn’t mean to, like it was a thought that slipped free and burst from his lips before he could trap it, cage it in.

zayn hears and liam knows he did so he sends him a small smile, hesitant and soft, and zayn feels like he could _fly_.


End file.
